Powder, Gears, and Blessed Steam - A WHF Engineering Quest

"You can take that 'un."

"Here, I had an extra one lying around anyway."

"I think I have a few jars around here somewhere I was going to replace anyway."

"Take it."

A solitary grunt.

What do all of these have in common? They are all instances where one of the crafts folk you have gone to get or commission tools from have simply given some of what you needed for free. Jars, a hand drill, a set of flints and strikers, cloth lined boxes for holding more delicate parts, a magnifying glass, several custom ordered tables with places for holdfasts pre-cut on the surface, metal clamps...

Everything together should carve a cavernous hole into your recently filled purse and yet you find almost half of what you buy being sold at a discount or literally given away with a frustration growing in the back of your mind. It isn't until the sixth time this happens that you finally feel it pushing you over the edge, stopping Isabelle as the two of you are carrying a table down the road.

"Why?"

An obvious question to you but her confusion has you grumbling, "Bah! The discounts. The free tools they just 'had lying around'. Why?"

She snorts in response, hefting the table up off the road and prodding you to follow along, "Most of the people you been buying from are relatives of Road Walkers, kind of obvious ain't it Sis? They're trying to thank you for what you've done for us..."

She laughs a little before continuing, "All of 'em are just more stubborn than a Sigmarite priest. Can't have some "young'un" thinking they went soft so they make excuses."

For someone else this might have been reassuring, but for you?

Your mind wanders to muskets that could've been made better. To ideas not yet given form in reality that you are certain could have changed everything. Frustration, anger, and even a sliver of self hatred start to brew as a memory resurfaces.

...

"... How does one decide what is a Grudge? What foolish thing are you after now plaitling?"

You could see the way his hand trembled as it held the hammer. His face sterner than usual as a meaty fist slammed into the table hard enough to crack the wood.

"Some things are better left for just the Dawi. Out."


Blankets.

A bed frame.

A stuffed mattress and pillow.

A nightstand.

A chair

A small table.

You look at each in turn with a strange sense of... Dissonance. Your bedding had been worse, alleyways and empty door ways acting as places for you to lay your head in your childhood years... And your bedding had been better for if there was one thing the school had never skimped on it was the quality of the furniture stocking the place.

"Probably thanks to all the Dawi that study, teach, and experiment there," You mutter under your breath, eyes darting back and forth as you try to pin down what it is exactly that feels so much more impactful about the simple living corner you've put together.

And then it hits you: All of this is yours from the walls to the dirt floors to the simple but well carved stool. Everything here is something you earned.

"A far cry from how little I'd get for fighting strays."

You scoff as you pick up your newly acquired bowl and ladle some of porridge into it.


Over the course of days you scour your workshop from top to bottom in the process of ensuring it is at least reasonably secure only to be reassured that the entire place was built by Dawi hands.

Everything from the masonry to the support beams has been handled with an almost eerie level of accuracy. Windows equidistant from each other. Support pillars that are, to your eye, perfectly symmetrical as well as positioned to ensure a level of redundancy with each other should one give out. Doubled locks on the door including a beam to bar it. A well treated wooden beam to seal the main doors that can be raised or lowered by a pulley system using metal chains in place of ropes...

"Is... Did I get this place too cheap?"

You mutter to yourself one day while inspecting a corner off from the main doors. A silly question to be sure, you more than most know that the Dawi would charge you exactly what they should and not a penny more or less, but still it comes to mind with each new inspection. Brows furrowed, you squat down beside a patch of dirt floor that by all rights is completely inconspicuous and yet your eye catches the slight raising of the floor. Digging your finger into the dirt a little finds the sensation of loose and packed dirt giving way to hard stone.

"Now, this, is interesting," Your voice is a half whisper as the situation seems to pull you into it and your fingers gingerly dig around for something that should be right... around...

"Here."

Finding purchase, you quickly dig up a large and dirt colored metal ring and give it a yank...

Okay, maybe you throw your back into it a little before a hatch door swings up almost silently from the floor to reveal a hole into the side of which little ladder notches seem to be carved.

...

You listen to the gentle flickering of the torch in your hand as you count out the steps while walking along the tunnel for the third time. A rough map in your mind ticking off the distance with each step until you reach the end where another ladder should lead directly up and, "Into the alley next door."

Jotting down a mental note, you turn and head back the way you came. Your eyes trace the featureless stonework as you once again wonder just how they managed to build all of this without anyone noticing.

...

Certain that if there was one there would be more your search of the workshop intensifies. Many hours of fruitless inspection eventually culminates in the discovery of a second hidden tunnel hidden in the shadow of the smelter hidden in much the same way as the first. You descend down the ladder with torch in one hand and the quiet tap of your feet against the stone rungs until at last reaching the bottom and fi-

"Nothing?"

The word escapes you almost immediately as your sight traces along the corners of the short tunnel that leads to apparently nowhere. After a few steps of hallway smooth masonry and solid stonework are the only thing left in front of you. No ladders carved into the sides. No hatches above.

Only a plain hallway whose secrets defy your every examination. If it has secrets at all.


You meet Alric in his office, the man finally relieved of his enforced bed rest though quite begrudgingly if Ralf's expression is anything to go by as the blind mercenary struggles to clean one of his pistols with only one hand. Despite the repeated failures and fumbling he seems rather unfazed by the entire situation, "Ralf tells me you brought us more guns? If I'm not mistaken that means you've now provided..."

He trails off, the pistol and rag in his hand freezing in the midst of the cleaning, "Twenty of them? Almost half of what we can field in battle are all from your hands. Not a lot of mercenaries out there who can claim a single craftsman armed them let alone an engineer."

Your focus darts to Ralf currently placing your rifles next to a trio of more meticulously made ones before turning back to Alric, "Not all of them are works I'm satisified with but ai. Twenty one flintlocks to be exact."

He nods, hand letting his weapon drop onto the desk with a light thud, "It might sound absurd, but as it stands... The Road Walkers now have one of the highest concentrations of black powder weaponry in all of Ostland. You probably are unaware but Elector von Königswald has shot down no less than twelve attempts to modernize at least a portion of the State Troops over the past decade."

He waves Ralf over as he speaks, the teenage mercenary setting a coin purse with your pay onto the table, "Thank you, Miss Margaret. I may well have some new work for you soon as well."

With that the conversation turns from your work to light chatter between the two of you about the 'kids working harder than ever' and 'some brat firing a shot through Ori's bedroom window'. You try to suppress a laugh as you notice the particular shade of red Ralf goes at that comment but Alric makes his amusement well known, a deepchuckle ending with a swig of vodka.


The Day of Mystery.

Fires crackle in your workshop, wood popping as it shifts in stone ringed fire pits, and the gentle hiss of steam whistling carries through the air as the aeolipile spins. Glancing up, you check each of the windows to ensure the shutters are still firmly in place before looking back to the spherical engine spinning gently before you. Sitting near the simple steam powered machine with Gromdottir resting gently on your lap, it is a familiar sense of ease that comes over you as you fondly remember that at least on this night you always had a roof above your head. When the Dark Moon rises it is only the most faithful of Morr who stalk the streets, their bodies and souls guarded from the fel moon's influence by His hand.

On Geheimnisnacht, it is not uncommon for most to go to bed early for in the realm of dreams your soul is safeguarded by Him as well.

"Or so the priests always told me," You mutter to yourself as you use a stick to adjust a particularly hefty chunk of firewood set to smoother a bed of coals beneath it. It was advice you'd listened to for years, even after Godri had taken you in and began bringing you into the 'safe embrace of stone' as he called it.

And yet, this night you find sleep alludes you.

"Seek the embrace of sleep for in Dreams is His presence most powerful and in Dreams his guidance most clear."

A sense of tension tugging at your heart.

The hair on the back of your neck standing on end.

A chill upon your spine.

Something was near you. Not... Next to you, but near. Time and again your hand reaches for the weapon in your lap as you find comfort in the faint warmth it always holds. Your attention shifts from it to a pair of barrels off to the side. Water to feed the aeolipile for hours... Water you've already used to refill it twice now seeking even an extra source of comfort.

Around and around the machine spins, white vapor pouring from the pipes upon it bringing warmth and a promise that lightens your heart with its mere presence. For a brief moment you contemplate making one to gift to Alric and the Road Walkers.

"Go to him in that land of rest, oh children of the Empire, for in his embrace the sea of madness that threatens to breach through this night is nothing to fear."

And then it happens.

A painful radiant heat upon your chest, a feeling akin to fingers running alone the base of your neck only to wrap around your spine and squeeze. Grabbing desperately for the source brings an all too familiar raven into sight. Bone white and unmoving it appears entirely unchanged and yet it feels nearly scalding in your grasp as if threatening to melt the skin upon your palm. Despite the pain... Or perhaps because of it, your mind can't quite figure out which, you keep it tightly in your grip.

It is with a pop of your ears that the entire world twists around you. Violently thrashing shades of purple swim across your vision as everything seems to double in your vision in a way very unlike those moments in your memory where you were deep into the cups. From floor to pillar to wall it is like everything has an ephemeral double layered overt-

"None who set foot upon his boat shall be harmed in even the most cruel of nights."

Your train of thought freezes up as you turn to look around your workshop curiously. Where once you were alone there are now tens of them gathered around you. Staring.

Shades of those once living.

Ghosts.

Their faces, twisted in fear and hatred and agony.

Their eyes locked on you.

"So I ask you sleep."

An old man in fine clothing, a burgher almost certainly, weeps as he meets your eyes.

"Sleep and hear the Raven's cry."

A sickly looking woman whose jaw is missing wails in your ear as she stares pleadingly towards you.

"Sleep and find yourself at His side."

A teenager with half their torso gone stands with their back ramrod straight, a scowl twisting their face as they look towards you... And yet you can tell the hatred on their face is not directed towards you.

"For His call to the Garden has yet to come."

A small child holding a bunny tightly to her chest...

"For this night too shall end."

On and on they go, seemingly from every walk of like from wealthiest to poorest.

In unison they raise their hands and point to your door as if trying to guide you outside to where the voice grows louder and louder.

What do you do?
[] Follow their lead.
[] Ignore them and ready Gromdottir.
[] Ignore them and pray next to the Aeolipile.
[] Write in.